Sunday, December 18, 2016

Defendant was convicted after a trial in municipal court, and again on appeal to the Law Division, of obstruction based on both physical interference and an "independently unlawful act." N.J.S.A. 2C:29-1(a). The court remanded for findings that might illuminate the judge's conclusory determination that defendant physically interfered with a state trooper in the issuance of a parking ticket at a highway rest stop. The court, however, also held that defendant, in these circumstances, could not be

convicted of obstruction by means of "an independently unlawful act" that was based solely on N.J.S.A. 39:4-57, which provides that "[d]rivers of vehicles . . . shall at all times comply with any direction . . . of a member of a police department" when the officer is in the course of "enforcing a provision of this chapter." Defendant was outside his vehicle and, therefore not a driver, and the trooper was not enforcing Chapter 39 because he was only issuing a parking ticket.

A municipality’s contracting for emergency medical services through a private, non-profit first-aid squad does not convert the EMTs into public servants because they are not exercising authority of a uniquely governmental nature or performing a function exclusive to government in any traditional sense, regardless of whether there are one or more non-profit providers of publically funded emergency medical services for the municipality. Morrison did not commit the offense of official misconduct because he was not performing a governmental function and therefore was not a public servant. The Court affirms the judgment of the Appellate Division and remands for proceedings on the four remaining counts.

The Court rejects the Appellate Division’s mistaken
reading of Keyport to authorize the Board’s unilateral
alteration of a collectively negotiated agreement.
Keyport does not stand for the proposition that anytime
a municipal public employer can claim an economic
crisis, managerial prerogative allows the public
employer to throw a collectively negotiated agreement
out the window. To the contrary, Keyport painstakingly
emphasized the significance of an agency of State
government enacting a temporary emergency regulation to
provide local governmental managers with enhanced
prerogatives. The regulation’s existence made all the
difference in Keyport, and there is a lack here of an
authorizing temporary emergency regulation that
permitted temporary furloughs. Keyport does not support
the award of summary judgment to the Board.